Lonely Furrow
by ThePointofthePen
Summary: Written for all died-in-the-war Hook fans prompted by a quote by J.M.Barrie in his lecture "Captain Hook at Eton".


_"Disclaimer: I __do not own Peter Pan or any of the related works __and I __do not make any money__ from these writings."_

_While you don't need to have read them all, I imagine the sources for this story are the original play, story ('Peter Pan and Wendy'), official sequel ('Peter Pan in Scarlet'), 'Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens' and a copy of "M'Connachie and J.M.B" - most specifically the lecture quoted below and __may possibly contain mini spoilers__ for any or all of them, though I don't believe I give away plots. I've also watched the recent live-action movie with Jason Issacs and some of that does come through a bit - I think he did quite perfectly in the role, so sue me._

_  
I do solomnly swear the OC in this is a creature very unlike myself, without purple hair or the name 'Violet-Moonbeam Sparrow-Malfoy' and I have taken as little artistic licence as possible. There is also no 'throbbing manhood', as it puts me off entirely and reminds me nothing at all of the delights of sex - indeed the story and it's sexual nature is only truely there to prove it can be done in step with the book(s). I didn't feel the need to write a full sex scene, build a bridge.  
(please note that "Hook" is being used as James' last name due to varying reports as to the truth of his last name, indeed his whole name is often questioned, but enough of that...I am here going by the majority of reports)._

" So far as I can learn there never was any woman in his life. His furrow had therfore to be a lonely one. Perhaps if some dear girl - who can tell?" J.M. Barrie. July 7, 1927. "Captain Hook at Eton"

There was a girl, well and truely. Evelyn Greenset was the daughter of Dr. Johnathan Greenset, local physician and family friend of the Hook family. The friendship started quite easily as both Dr. Greenset and Mr. Hook (senior) had curiousity about James' unusual medical condition and a great love of snooker. Through out James' youth it was rare that a fortnight would pass without the Greensets being invited to dine with the Hooks, or perhaps the Hooks with the Greensets.

Despite her tactless child-like pleas, Evelyn never witnessed the oddity of James Hook's blood - and soon the young girls' questions switched topics and after some time the two children would make up stories so wildly adventurous that afterwards they would look about to see if indeed they were still on England's shores. While it was never an acknoledged friendship and the two never craved each other's company, when they were within each other's presence when they become inseprable.

James would pretend that he was a wild forest boy, who weilded a sword better than any other and would never ever grow old and marry a woman...especially a woman who shopped as his mother did. Evelyn had decided that she was his fairy-fellow who bravely taunted his enemies and pulled at their hair with her tiny fists and stole treasure from out of their pockets.  
In this way hours, weeks, years passed. Each meal the children shared turned to imaginary food under the unseeing eyes of their adult companions, each sitting room was a potential caves in their whispered stories. More than once Evelyn had to be hushed after a startled cry caused purely by a dragon who's startled her. Somehow however James never got caught pretending to attack the pirates and bandits that attacked them.

Unfortunately all good things did infact come to an end. Michaelmas half came and the young man of the Hook family donned morning coat and white tie. Evelyn made him swear to write to her often, as their friendship had grown comfortable and familiar and she feared loosing him to the books and halls of Eton.

But young boys have never been the most consistant in letters and the correspondence quickly grew sparse; fleetingly penned well wishes to her and her family between training...the occasional slightly barbed remarks about his own family grew more noticable and indeed she noticed that her own opinion of the ever-plesent Mrs. Hook tarnishing by degrees.  
Each letter was recieved, replied to in length and placed in a wooden keepsake box on which her fingers lingered more and more as she aged.  
Then abruptly one day, many years after he had left, James was brought home. Money was apparently tight - though Mrs. Hook was as pristinely dressed as ever...the Greensets were invited to tea, but on arrival James was not at the table.  
Nor would he ever be again.

-------------------------

James Hook leveled his hook at the boy, knarled and scarred skin giving way to smooth metal that ended in a crueler hook than any butcher had ever seen.  
"At last - Peter Pan...." He growled, the quiet tone sharp and clear - almost un-naturally so. The boy wore ragged coverings, torn and dirty brown with as much green tangled in it as the matted crop of hair upon his head.  
"I will win Hook...I always will. I am youth!" Crowed the boy, slashing the air with his sword. "And you are old..."  
James drew his sword and saluted his opponent, expecting and receving no simmilar mark of respect and lunged. How he hated this loathesome youth, as did many...even long after James death very few adults would speak fondly of the famed Peter Pan.

Though the outcome was always predetermined, James always held bitter and black hope. A hope which - as always, was crushed and renewed for the next encounter as his crew and he prowled back to the ship - defeated once more, but always with his hope.

Evelyn looked nothing like the fine girl she was when she left England. Her hair was wild and her lips and hands were cracked, burnt and bleeding - torn by the elements, and burnt by the harsh suns. Also - she had been concious when she left - but here her travelling case bobbed and grated on the gravelly shore of Grief Reef, the sharp shell fragments grating against limp fingers hanging over the edge.  
She woke several hours later, at sunset when the landscape had taken on a chill and turned it's warm earthy smells away leaving the wind feeling hollow. She sat gingerly, her head aching, her legs grateful for the movement as she stepped shakily onto the shore and straightened her dress.  
In the distance she heard hysterical voices.  
_'Richard!' _

_'Pierre!'_

_'Ivan!' _  
Before she knew it her feet carried her towards the pitiable cries...she really shouldn't have...she had come here for a reason but...

_'George!'  
'Stephen!'_  
The ground swirled and peaked and before her was a earthen maze, it's tear-scented walls and despondantly wandering figures had a distinctly haunting qualilty and yet...

...yet she felt her shuffle match theirs, her feeling of groundless floating loss slipping into a pre-designated spot.  
_'Gerard!'_

_'Michael!'  
'Jules!'_

The way she'd come in was now a well-worn wall, or another corridor - she wasn't sure which.

"James?!"

The voice that rasped the name was dried with salt, but the more she cried it the more certain feelings welled up - something that the other desprate voices didn't have at all.  
_'Martin!'_

_'Walter!'_

_'Shinji!'_  
Anger is a very strong emotion - and far more active than grief. The slow measured wander sharpened and her sense of direction returned...wether it be North or South - out was the only way she wanted. Out and to the doorstep of James Hook.

Woman's intuition has always been a refuge for the cleverest of the gender - and for those who follow it often, most often follow it rightly. It is this explaination that struck her as the only one avalible to supply her lack of surprise when she made out that the light she'd been peering at was a campfire around which ruffians and scoundrels lounged, licking their wounds and downing vial liqeur from dirty brown bottles. Amongst them, clearly picked as their leader was a man who's every move reeked of a fine upbringing in a bitter life. His dark hair had lightened perhaps or was that a trick of the fire light?

Fearless only by exhaustion she marched in to the circle, the rough hands ached on her burnt skin as the grabbed at her but she stood tall.  
"James Hook." She addressed the leader sharply, her lips quivering slightly. "You stopped writing."

The captain frowned and stood - not recognising her. "Writing? Me? To whom? I recognise no family now. My only companions are my crew - so help me."

The rough hands let go, though hovering close out of curiousity the pirates saw no need at all to restrain a mear woman. Evelyn stepped closer.  
"To Evelyn Greenset, that is whom!"  
Like a single drop of dye in water, recogision of the name hit...causing a frown, then spread through him as memories of his childhood adventures were dregged up.  
Evelyn saw the familiarity being pulled from dusty recollections and sharpened in his eyes as a understanding without emotion.  
It was then that - for the first time, Captain James Hook learnt the power a small female frame can weild in an open palm.  
Baffled and with the slap-mark still red on his cheek, James watched the furious girl before him burst in to angry, tired gasping sobs, the uneven breath rate they caused her weary body pushing her to teater unsteadily and collapse, unconsious.

"Honestly Evelyn, I thought you were smarter than to wear a corset on a tropical island...it simply isn't the vogue." James drawled with a slightly ironic smile, pressing a wet cloth to her forhead. She stirred and moved to rise, but he pressed her down carefully - unused to handling anything he feared breaking.  
"You.... you found it." She murmered. "Neverland...you found it. At first I thought it was you in green...but there was another girl with you, and you were so rude to her...I hoped so strongly that it was not you, and it wasn't. Is that how it works here? Did I make you a pirate from my fear of crude manners?"

There was a heavy pause. "No."  
"But James...." she attempted to move again, wanting to be at his eye level.  
"Enough." He was having trouble, really. It had been a long time amoungst thieves and brutes and a lady in his quarters was a problem, but he couldn't remember why, but he was sure that even if it had been correct that perhaps the corset he'd had to cut from her should have been returned or at least a replacement provided...but neither replacement or original were on hand.  
And he wasn't sure he didn't like the look of her as she was.  
"Why did you follow me?" the question came, more like a demand, confident and insistant on answer.  
"Irwin Baderman." She replied simply, then, realising that it made little sense continued. "A boy named Irwin Baderman proposed to me. He is rich and clever without a speck of imagination, quite the perfect husband for any lucky girl." but it seemed she did not feel lucky at all.  
"You are married then?" He asked, sounding oddly hollow.  
"Not in the least!" She declared, having to be restrained again. "Damn you James...let me up! I am as well as you could be with such bandages...how on earth did you get those?"  
He rolled his shoulders back and looked at her carefully, relenting to let her sit upright, letting her use his arm as a support - her dry skin soft against his even rougher flesh.  
"Then you are not married."  
The answer was a shake of the head, and a smile.  
"Then why did you come here? If you have plans of marrying me ..."  
She nearly screeched. "You? James, no! Matrimony is hardly what I want from you. You are a ruffian - everything we fought against as children...and now I want to know what this life holds that you couldn't take me with you."  
"With me? What in Lucifer's name...?"  
"The story." Evelyn insisted. "Tell it to me as it is now. Tell me a story of what you dream of right now."  
James stood and shot her a look that spoke of confusion and irritation, plus something neither of them recognised. James had always liked to win, liked what he wanted in his possession wether by motives pure or foul, and in that moment the fiend in him spoke some new want in his ear. The voice however didn't get what it wanted as James stood and absently excused himself.

"All children grow up, Evie." His voice was low, and he moved in to sit beside her again, his fingers toying with the tattered softness of her dress. She wasn't aware of how long he'd been gone as she'd fallen asleep again, but she was delighted he was back and apparently intended to tell her what he dreamed. "And you and I appear to have done so very well...indeed we ought to be commended. Having come of age on the high seas amongst these men, I find myself more often than not dreamless, indeed one day I expect to never sleep again - it is that boy. He steals away what I'd hoped for myself, both good and evil and replaces it only with thoughts of what I shall never have. A constant reminder of the cruelty of time...and now."  
There was stillness.  
"And now?" She prompted.  
"Now he taunts me still for I have the most wickedest of thoughts and still I feel too old to act on them."  
Evelyn tutted, noticing the room was dimmer and in need of a fresh candle she reached to the bedside table and lit one. "Wicked thoughts are so much the rage these days - old and young all along the streets are full of he most fashionable wickedness. Why only yesterday I came across dear Lizzy and her husband has obtained the newest fad from the East...Opium I believe it's called. Apparently it's rather entertaining."  
James' eyes glinted in the new candle-light, animal-like as if freed from definitions. He stroked the stubble on his jaw thoughtfully.  
She knelt up and took his hand. "Tell me James...you know I don't fear you, I am your fairy - remember?"  
His kiss was rough and tasted of harsh spirits, pressing so hard to her lips that she felt the dry skin crack once again he broke the kiss and looked her over, pushing the bedding out of his way to look apon her in her cut dress, soft and white with delicate pink burns that matched the shell-coloured nipples. He reached out and pushed the clinging threads from her shoulders, tearing what wouldn't come easily. His rough hands took hold of one of her breasts and for a moment she was reminded of Lizzy's husband - the careful study, gentle preperation all done with a slight shake of unrestrained need. His weight pressed her back hungrily, pinning her easily.

Later, as he lay beside her, he waited for the shame - after all, they were not at all married and yet she lay naked and shaking beside him but no shame came.


End file.
